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Emily Proctor

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There's a reason respected news organizations like The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal have dipped their toes into native advertising. Not only is it a lucrative revenue stream for those publications, but the creation of native ads also has a lot in common with traditional journalism.

Yes, native ads are serving a brand's marketing strategy, while journalism is designed to democratize information and report the facts. There are clear lines of division separating these two forms, but marketers would be wise to borrow the practices and policies of journalistic content and use them in their native campaigns. Here are some guidelines for applying those lessons.

Native advertising is a highly effective tactic that gives an ad the same tone and appearance as other content within a publication. You've probably seen native ads in the form of a sponsored article written to emulate editorial content or a display ad nestled among recommended content at the end of a blog post.

But while native ads give small businesses a huge opportunity to promote their products or services (while earning potentially massive brand recognition), failing to follow native advertising rules can land your brand in hot water — both with your customers and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Despite the risk, a whopping 37 percent of publishers are not native-compliant, according to MediaRadar. To meet your marketing goals without incurring hefty fines or losing customer trust, here are three things you should always do:

Native advertising has been around for years, and it exploded in popularity when social networks like Facebook began offering marketing channels that were well-suited to native content.

But the growing trend of native ads among small- and medium-sized businesses is the result of an entirely different force. According to The Wall Street Journal, native ads are gaining more prominence on programmatic ad exchanges and their share of overall ad volume is growing. Even though banners remain the dominant form of advertising sold through these exchanges, the increased role of native advertising has made it more accessible to SMBs.

That said, it remains uncharted territory for small business owners who are leery of spending their precious marketing dollars on unproven methods. But there are at least three solid reasons why every SMB should be thinking about launching their own native ad campaign.